Join us in a twitterchat about online and mobile safety while traveling #ChatSTC

By Nikola Sirovica, Communications Intern School is out, graduations are over, and the time for your summer vacation has arrived! You have your sunscreen, your giant cooler, and the beach chairs – all you need is that dream destination. Whether you are embarking on a last-minute getaway with friends or a family vacation planned months in advance, keeping your mobile devices safe and secure in unfamiliar places can be a challenge. Join us this Thursday, July 18 for a Twitterchat to discuss how to keep yourself safe online when traveling.

There are many tricks that criminals use to defraud vacationers via their mobile devices. How do you know if your Wi-Fi network is secure? What do you do if you lose your phone away from home? Should you change your privacy settings when traveling? As consumers, it is very important to know your rights and take extra precautions while traveling. Be extra wary of any prizes and sweepstakes telling you that you’ve won a trip to the Bahamas, Florida, or any other dream location. These scams will ask you to pay a fee up front before you can receive your prize. Anyone who pays the fee will unfortunately find out the trip doesn’t exist and they have fallen victim to a scam. On Thursday, NCL will be a guest expert in a Twitterchat organized by the National Cyber Security Alliance’s (NCSA) global cyber security campaign Stop. Think. Connect. Among the topics covered will be how to spot travel scams, how to identify reliable Wi-Fi connections, safe online banking, and which apps can be helpful to protect you when you are on the road. Ask questions in advance using the hashtag #ChatSTC, and the panel of experts will answer. Or, follow the conversation live at #ChatSTC. When: Thursday, July 18th at 3 p.m. EDT/noon PDT Who: National Consumers League (@ncl_tweets), STOP. THINK. CONNECT. (@STOPTHNKCONNECT), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (@cyber), McAfee (@McAfeeConsumer), the FCC (@FCC).